Desalination market forecast

Desalination systems are an expensive solution to water scarcity issues whose commercialisation was limited to hydrocarbon rich countries lacking natural water resources, in particular the Middle East. The market landscape however has changed over the last 20 years. Decades of research and technology improvements have greatly increased the energy efficiency of thermal desalination plants, helping bring down operating costs. Meanwhile, membrane based desalination has changed the economics of the sector, making desalination more affordable and less dependent on thermal energy sources.

These factors, when coupled with demographic trends in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia Pacific have boosted the addition of desalination capacity worldwide in the 2000s. Weakened by the 2008 – 2009 financial crisis, the subsequent world economic slowdown, the 2011 revolutions in North Africa and the drop in new capacity additions after the 2000s boom, the desalination market hit its lowest point in a decade last year. The solidity of the underlying market fundamentals, however, suggests that the desalination industry will enter a new phase of growth in 2014.

Facts and figures

The global desalination market is anticipated to be worth US$ 3. 917 million by the end of the year. This includes markets for reverse osmosis, multi effect distillation, multi stage flash, electrodialysis, electrodeionisation and electrodialysis reversal as well as aggregated CAPEX on hybrid plants and other technologies.